The top Democrat in the U.S. Senate said on Sunday that Democrats would consider refusing to vote on a new FBI director until a special prosecutor is named to investigate President Donald Trump’s potential ties to Russia. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said his caucus has not yet made a decision on whether to withhold…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The Anti-Defamation League will train the staff of Mexico’s 50 consulates in the United States on how to assist nationals who are victims of attacks and harassment. “Through our regional offices we are the first to be called in case of a hate crime. When a synagogue is defaced, when…
(JTA) — The American parents of a teen-age yeshiva student shot in 1996 at a bus stop near the West Bank city of Beit El, have filed a lawsuit to recover the damages it was awarded by a jury in federal court in Chicago. Stanley and Joyce Boim on Friday filed the lawsuit in Chicago…
ROME (JTA) – Police identified four young teenagers as the vandals who smashed or toppled scores of Catholic and Jewish gravestones in Rome’s Verano cemetery. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the four were aged 13 and 14 and came from “good families.” Surveillance videos filmed them smashing headstones, tombs, and memorials in four…
(JTA) — A Ukrainian Jew in his twenties was critically injured by his neighbor. The incident happened in Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday, according to a statement on the community’s website, which identified the injured community member only as Abraham, 26. The neighbor attacked the man with a sharp object, hitting his leg, according…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — British media reported that Israel has permanently withdrawn from the Eurovision song contest after the closing Israel Broadcasting Authority made its farewells live while reporting the country’s scores. Other countries also took the farewell by IBA host Ofer Nachshon to mean that Israel would be leaving the annual tournament, whose finals took…
ousands of pilgrims traveled to Meron in northern Israel to mark the start of Lag B’Omer. Mount Meron is the burial place of grave of Jewish Kabbalist and mystic Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, a popular pilgrimage site for the holiday. The pilgrims began lighting bonfires after midnight on Saturday night, with hundreds of thousands of…
Palestinians are planning to create a Bitcoin-style currency that would help the Palestinian economy operate independently of Israeli influence. According to a report in Reuters, the Palestine Monetary Authority is designing the currency, which would be called the Palestinian pound. It aims to have the currency in use in the next five years. The PMA…
Israeli director Yoav Tzafir is blaming Israel’s poor showing in the 2017 Eurovision contest finals on the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Israeli pop singer Imri Ziv came in 23rd out of 26th place in the competition in Ukraine with his song “I Feel Alive.” The song’s music video was co-directed by Tzafir and Elad…
(JTA) — The Hashomer Hatzair Jewish youth movement called on its members in Israel to vote for a performer representing Belgium in the Eurovision song contest because she is a member of the organization’s Brussels branch. Ellie Delvaux, 17, aka Blanche, is one several dozen performers from 26 countries, including Israel, who are participating in…
Almost everyone knows that bacon is forbidden under kosher laws, but a rogue group of rabbinic scholars is challenging this assumption, according to a recent article in Haaretz. Dr. Robert Gnuse, a professor in the Religious Studies Department at Loyola University, argues that the kosher and clothing rules found in the Book of Leviticus (where…
